I love my mind even when it thinks insane thoughts. This is a new thought for me to have, because most of my life I've really hated all the crazy stuff my brain would come up with, and I associated those thoughts with my identity. I believed that if I had certain thoughts, that must mean I am that kind of a person. Just yesterday I had the breakthrough that I can love my mind exactly as it is, even with its dark sides and its ugly sides, because ultimately my actions will really determine what people think of me and my impact in the world.
To some degree, although I believe we are telepathically connected and our thoughts do have some effect on other people, we also do have privacy. To some degree we can think whatever we want to, and it doesn't bother anybody.
Why I used to hate my own mind
I used to think that if I had any thoughts that I didn't like, I should fight those thoughts. Then I would subconsciously hate my mind and tell it to shut up and stop that, and then I'd flip and really go deep into the insane areas of my mind. Like when I first got sober, my mind would think about drinking all the time, and I got to hate it. I'm like, stop thinking about drinking. You're such an idiot. I don't want those thoughts.
No matter how spiritual you get or how wonderful your life is — and I'm pretty spiritual, my life is pretty nice — my mind still comes up with some crazy ideas. I'll be driving down the road, and I used to be a police officer, and I'll be driving home from the grocery store and my mind comes up with the thought that you should just floor it and ram that police car in the back. It's like, what? Yeah, that'd be a nice day, going to jail, wouldn't it? That's so crazy.
Treating my mind like a stand-up comedian
What helps me is to look at the thoughts my mind produces like that as a stand-up comedian who's trying to entertain me. The thought can be there as a test — like, hey, let's see if he goes for this crazy thought. Because some of the crazy thoughts I actually believe. My mind says this person is awful and you should hate them, and occasionally it tricks me into that, and I start thinking, yeah, you're right, this person is awful, come up with some more thoughts of why I should hate them.
That happens even when I know that I'm here as a being of light, as we all are, and that my role, my joy, is in sharing the light and helping others and being a part of the community and serving. Therefore, anything besides that — thoughts of harm, insanity, inconsiderate, self-centered, delusional thoughts — those I used to be so mad about.
The real test of love is whether you can love the insanity
What I find is that the true test of love is: can you love when things aren't going your way? Can you love your partner when they're looking ugly or when they're being mean? Can you love your kids when they're being crazy and when they're not doing what you think they should want to? Can you love your parents when they're sick and delusional and they aren't taking care of themselves? Can you love the world when horrible things are happening — wars and violence, people starving in a world where a third of people are overweight? Can you love the world when it's insane? Can you love yourself and your family and your friends when they're insane?
Now, I'm not saying that you need to put yourself in the middle of the insanity and feed the insanity. As a general rule, if my mind comes up with some crazy stuff, I acknowledge it. Like, wow, that was unusual, or that was pretty far out there, or I see you — I see you thinking about that — and now we're going to move on. Now I'd like you to think about what you'd like to do the rest of the day, or what kind of a video you can make.
Accepting the thoughts instead of fighting them
What's really cool is that yesterday my mind was filled with more insane thoughts than usual. Instead of being so critical and feeling in conflict, I accepted and I noticed the thoughts. I'm like, okay, I see you, I see these thoughts. These are selfish, insane thoughts — that's my judgment of them — I see them, I accept that they're there, and it doesn't matter that they're there. Because just like I'm not going to ram the police officer on the way home from the grocery store, I'm not going to do anything in my life that's going to cause anyone harm, whether it's my family, my friends, or some random person on the street. I'm not here for that purpose, and that doesn't bring me joy. Therefore my mind can think whatever it wants to.
It was a revolutionary concept to just say, I love you, mind. This shift — choosing love and trust over fighting my own thoughts — is the same move I describe in how I chose faith when my mind went to fear. And I had to recognize that, hey, all the tough spots I've ever been in, my mind has always gotten me out of them. From asking for help when I was first sober in Alcoholics Anonymous — that started with feeling desperate and alone and hungover and hopeless, and my mind gave me the thought, why don't you go to Alcoholics Anonymous, to get me out of that. So my mind has its light and dark sides, and I'd rather recognize, accept, and acknowledge them than fight and deny them.
Dropping the split personality
What I don't want to have anymore is a split personality. I used to have this split personality where I'd have one identity based around all the dark thoughts and one identity based around all the light thoughts. Drinking often was a way to really get into and embrace and accept all the dark thoughts, but it also ended up acting them out sometimes as well, which was really scary.
Where I find a lot of us struggle and suffer is that we compartmentalize ourselves. We try and put our thoughts in little boxes and hide them and pretend they don't exist, and then they only come out at certain times when certain things are triggered, and then they're really scary because we've tried to hide them. Often our bodies will do things and produce symptoms based on thoughts we're not willing to think, or thoughts we've tried to compartmentalize and push away. That connection between an unacknowledged thought and what shows up in the body is something I go even deeper on in how I am creating every experience in my body.
For example, I was talking to my daughter the other day when she was trying to act sick in order to stay home from school. She said that she really wanted to go to school, and I said, well, your body indicates you don't want to go to school, because if you wholeheartedly wanted to go, you'd feel good and you'd go there. Your body is clearly wanting to stay home, which usually means there's some unacknowledged thought that you don't want to express that needs to be shared. My daughter said, yeah, it's been a long weekend, it's Monday, I was out, I'd like to just have a quiet day at home and then go to school tomorrow. So I said, fine, have a quiet day at home — you don't need to be sick to have a quiet day at home. She instantly got out of bed, ate her breakfast, and had a regular nice day at home, not sick.
Share the exact nature of your thoughts with a safe person
It is important, when we have thoughts, to remember that if you feel like you're really alone and nobody else ever thinks about this stuff, first off, that's a lie, because we're all telepathically connected. The thoughts we have are all connected, thought together with other people in this big telepathic net of thoughts.
If your thoughts really bother you, one thing you can do is find a safe person to share the exact nature of the thoughts with. For example, with my sponsor and my grand-sponsor in Alcoholics Anonymous, I shared the exact nature of all the craziest thoughts my mind was having, and all the past experiences I had related to those thoughts, and they shared their lives and their crazy thoughts. It helped me realize that what you see people expressing and talking about on the surface — especially if you're in a peaceful, caring, loving community like I'm in, where people are generally pretty nice and understanding, which means they're generally not too crazy or outrageous and usually not expressing these thoughts — most of us are still having some kind of nutty, insane, selfish thoughts. Not all the time necessarily, but here and there, some days more than others. You're not alone with these thoughts. All of us have our crazy thoughts, our dark thoughts. Finding that kind of safe community to be honest in is a big part of what I've built inside the Jerry Banfield Family.
Your thoughts are more collective than individual
Often our thoughts are mirroring each other. I used to feel really bad when I would have thoughts that I should leave my wife and find another one. Usually when I was thinking those thoughts, it turns out, after talking to my wife about them, that she was usually thinking thoughts that she'd rather be alone and she didn't need me anymore. Our minds were literally having the same basic thought, individualized into both of our life experiences. So the thoughts you're having are really more collective thoughts than individual thoughts, especially when you consider that rarely do your thoughts not involve anyone else somehow. Even if you think you're totally isolated and self-centered and you're only thinking about you, you're often thinking, what are other people going to think of me? Or the things you're afraid of doing involve other people.
I am not my mind
So what I've found that really helps is to say: I love you, mind. I love you no matter what thoughts you're thinking. I love you, I see you, we're here together. And at the same time, I am not my mind. I observe my mind, but I am much more than a mind that thinks or a body that feels and acts. I am consciousness. I am God. I am the universe. I really am the space that everything happens within. Sitting in that identity — that I'm the Higher Power having this experience — is what I explore in why being God is hard.
I also don't identify with the thoughts that come through. To some degree they're just like the example Eckhart Tolle used in The Power of Now — a rat race, where an animal runs by, and there goes a thought, and there goes another thought. Sometimes it's like you're watching a little mouse hole or groundhog hole, just wondering when a thought's going to pop up. Oh, there's one, there it is, and then it goes back, and there's no thought for a moment. Nope, there's another thought. To some degree the thoughts just come out without me doing anything.
The people I'm around have a big impact on the thoughts I'm thinking, and I'm certain we're all telepathically connected, so that with some people we'll have certain thoughts and with other people we'll have other thoughts — because all our thoughts are connected.
You are never thinking alone
I want you to know you're never alone. You're never thinking thoughts alone, and there's a reason and a purpose for your thoughts. If you can't find any other reason, it's a test: can you love your mind when it's going nuts? It's easy to love my mind when it's inspired and coming up with great ideas and full of enthusiasm for life. But can I love my mind when it's really nihilistic, when nothing matters and everything's stupid and everyone's wrong? Yes, I can, and I do. And I love your mind that way as well. If reflections like this are the kind of thing you enjoy, you can watch more of them in my Life playlist.